As I said this, a certain hymn, for which I had and have an especial affection, came into my mind, and, without prologue or introduction, I repeated it:
"If I Him but have, If he be but mine, If my heart, hence to the grave, Ne'er forgets his love divine-- Know I nought of sadness, Feel I nought but worship, love, and gladness.
If I Him but have, Glad with all I part; Follow on my pilgrim staff My Lord only, with true heart; Leave them, nothing saying, On broad, bright, and crowded highways straying.
If I Him but have, Glad I fall asleep; Aye the flood that his heart gave Strength within my heart shall keep, And with soft compelling Make it tender, through and through it swelling.
If I Him but have, Mine the world I hail! Glad as cherub smiling grave, Holding back the virgin's veil. Sunk and lost in seeing, Earthly fears have died from all my being.
Where I have but Him Is my Fatherland; And all gifts and graces come Heritage into my hand: Brothers long deplored I in his disciples find restored."
"What a lovely hymn, papa!" exclaimed Connie. She could always speak more easily than either her mother or sister. "Who wrote it?"
"Friedrich von Hardenberg, known, where he is known, as Novalis."
"But he must have written it in German. Did you translate it?"
"Yes. You will find, I think, that I have kept form, thought, and feeling, however I may have failed in making an English poem of it."
"O, you dear papa, it is lovely! Is it long since you did it?"
"To think of you having lived so long, and being one of us!" she returned. "Was he a Roman Catholic, papa?"
"No, he was a Moravian. At least, his parents were. I don't think he belonged to any section of the church in particular."
"Certainly not, my dear, except he saw good reason for it. But what is the use of asking such questions, after a hymn like that?"
"O, I didn't think anything bad, papa, I assure you. It was only that I wanted to know more about him."
The tears were in her eyes, and I was sorry I had treated as significant what was really not so. But the constant tendency to consider Christianity as associated of necessity with this or that form of it, instead of as simply obedience to Christ, had grown more and more repulsive to me as I had grown myself, for it always seemed like an insult to my brethren in Christ; hence the least hint of it in my children I was too ready to be down upon like a most unchristian ogre. I took her hand in mine, and she was comforted, for she saw in my face that I was sorry, and yet she could see that there was reason at the root of my haste.